NOTES AND QUERIES. 453 



in the oak-trees, and I have long felt convinced that they were mainly 

 responsible for the dispersal of acorns, though it is not easy to catch them 

 actually doing it. On October 29th of this year I was successful. In the 

 middle of au extensive field, bordered by an oak-copse and scattered trees, 

 a flock of Rooks was feeding and passing singly backwards and forwards to 

 the oaks. On driviug the birds away, and walking to the middle of the 

 field, I found hundreds of empty acorn-husks, and a number of half-eaten 

 pecked acorns, which had not had time to change their colour — a cut acorn 

 changes colour on exposure to the air like a cut apple, though not quite so 

 fast. This showed that the birds had been disturbed in the middle of their 

 feast, for the marks on the acorns were quite unlike those made by a rodent 

 or any mammal. They were stabbed and pecked, and the husks were torn 

 off in strips, usually starting from a puncture. It was also noticeable that 

 many of them were not shed acorns, but were accompanied by acorn-cups, 

 the stalks of which had been bitten to tear them off the trees. This was 

 singular, for the ground beneath the trees was covered with shed acorns. 

 The Rooks, however, were in the trees, not under them, and the reason for 

 the selection of acorns in cups is probably that they are easier to carry — a 

 shed acorn must be an awkwardly large and slippery thing for a Rook's 

 beak, one with a stalk will be more convenient. Several uninjured acorns 

 were found, and most of the remains occurred on smooth spots of short turf 

 — places where a slippery acorn might conveniently be pecked without being 

 lost. One almost uninjured acorn had been driven by a single peck detp 

 into the soft soil of a mole-hill. It might be thought that it would be much 

 simpler for the Rooks to feed on the ground beneath the trees. Some of 

 them apparently do so ; but the majority seem always to carry the acorns 

 into the open. The Rook is a suspicious bird, quarrelsome, and a born 

 thief. He seems particularly to object to a comrade watching him from any 

 post of vantage, and the Rooks, when among the oaks, for some reason or 

 other are always quarrelling, notwithstanding the abundance of food. An 

 acorn dropped on rough ground, or in a peat-moss, would stand a great 

 chance of being lost in some crevice or soft place ; but the oak seeds so 

 freely that the bird need not waste time trying to recover the lost acorn — 

 there are plenty more on the tree. In this way the oak-woods must spread 

 rapidly. But we still want observations as to the distance to which acorns 

 can be carried. I have seen seedling oaks at a distance of a mile from the 

 nearest mature tree (not necessarily the tree from which the acorn camej, 

 and have found the characteristically torn husks somewhat further away. 

 Do Rooks roosting in elm-trees ever carry home acorns for supper ? There 

 used to be a number of Rooks which roosted in elms near Brighton in the 

 autumn and winter, but crossed the Downs to feed in the Weald. I have 

 often watched them returning at dusk. Do they ever bring acorns from 

 that distance ? This flock may have been responsible for the seedling oaks 



